1980s – Page 22 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
Written & Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is not the first Studio Ghibli movie, but it is considered the first one. Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio, was founded in 1985 after Nausicaä was released. However, because it is the first film by Hayao Miyazaki to present the themes and types of stories present in his later work, Nausicaä has retroactively been made a part of the Ghibli canon. It fits perfectly, and for most fans, they don’t even notice the difference in dates.

Movie Review – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
Written by Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon
Directed by Stephen Herek

I vividly remember renting Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure when I was about 8 or 9. My mom was doing something that night related to the church, and so we got to rent a movie while staying home with our dad. I had seen the television commercials for Bill and Ted, but living in a family of four kids with only one working parent, we didn’t go out to the movie theater much. Video rental was how I saw most films, but they had to be PG-rated or lower, with some exceptions made for PG-13. I can remember loving this movie, not knowing who some of these historical figures were at the time, but enjoying the goofball duo that led the picture.

My Favorite Movies of 1980

Popeye (directed by Robert Altman)

From my review: Popeye the film was not based on the cartoons rather the comic strip by E.C. Segar, which is where the character originated. The comic strip had a vast supporting cast beyond the five primary roles of the cartoon. Director Altman fills out Sweethaven with these strange and silly faces. There is Wimpy, of course, but also his nemesis Geezil. Rough House the local cook is present, the entire Oyl family (Cole, Nana, & Castor), the clumsy Harold Hamgravy, local boxer Oxblood Oxheart, and many more. Unsuspecting audiences were naturally overwhelmed with the sprawling cast and director Altman’s penchant for layered conversations and dialogue.

Movie Review – Fatso

Fatso (1980)
Written & Directed by Anne Bancroft

In 1980, Mel Brooks started his own production company, Brooksfilm. Under this umbrella, he would produce pictures like The Elephant Man, The Fly, and many of his own films like Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The very first movie released from Brooksfilm would be Fatso, the directorial debut of Brooks’s wife, Anne Bancroft. Despite her very Anglo sounding name, Bancroft was really Anna Maria Louisa Italiano, and so her film is reflective of her very traditional Italian upbringing in New York City. Accurately, we see the toxic effect of a culture so centered around consumption using food to soothe anxiety and stress, while never tackling the underlying issues. The result is an incredibly mixed bag of tonal inconsistency and a lack of a clear point of view on the characters and themes.

Movie Review – The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Written by Lawrence Kasdan & Leigh Brackett
Directed by Irvin Kershner

The Star Wars movies are always viewed collectively as trilogies, but I thought it would be interesting to examine one in isolation, as the product of a year in a landscape of other movies. Empire Strikes Back was released at the start of summer that also included The Blues Brothers, Airplane!, Caddyshack, Friday the 13th, and The Shining to name a few. It’s no surprise that the second Star Wars film dominated the box office and was the number one hit domestically and internationally. I’d be willing to bet people saw Empire that hadn’t seen the first picture as that is something that happens today with all sorts of film franchises. I have to wonder what a person like that thought as they were watching. I think the film does such an excellent job communicating who its characters are that even if you don’t get every detail, you understand from an archetypal perspective what is going on.

Movie Review – Ordinary People

Ordinary People (1980)
Written by Alvin Sargent
Directed by Robert Redford

American culture still has problems talking about mental health, but it was considerably more complicated when Ordinary People came out. This was also the directorial debut of actor Robert Redford, who founded the Sundance Institute, a non-profit dedicated to helping independent filmmakers create their work. Redford always stood out as an actor who physically appeared as the atypical Hollywood glamor star but who chose work that didn’t always focus on his looks. Throughout the 1970s, he picked smartly written work closely tied to his political and philosophical views. With his first gig as a director, he managed to make a film that would never be a crowd-pleaser but focused on essential issues that movies often sidestepped.

Comic Book Review – Booster Gold: The Big Fall

Booster Gold: The Big Fall (2019)
Reprints Booster Gold V1 #1-12
Written by Dan Jurgens
Art by Dan Jurgens & Mike DeCarlo

The 1980s are remembered as a decade of gross corporate excess in the United States. Ronald Reagan became president and opened the doors to deregulating the financial sector. American Psycho is a great satirical take on the results of letting Wall Street run wild on American wealth. In DC Comics, they indulged in the excess with the most massive comic book crossover to date, Crisis on Infinite Earths. This featured heroes from across the multiverse in a battle beyond time and space. The result was a condensed timeline where they managed (or in some cases failed to accomplish) populating the single remaining Earth with legions of heroes. The character considered to be the first post-Crisis one is Booster Gold, a mystery man who encompasses all the corporate greed.

Movie Review – The Changeling

The Changeling (1980)
Written by William Gray & Diana Maddox
Directed by Peter Medak

Does tragedy make a person more open to other planes of existence? If we come close to death or experience, profound loss, are we then able to brief make out the shades of another world that exists within our own? The Changeling explores these ideas in a tightly crafted and well made haunted house picture. Long before the days of Blumhouse, this was a movie that trafficked in many of the same tropes and themes but didn’t need to lean into empty jumpscares or tired formulas to keep audiences interested. That isn’t to say this is a perfect film, but it is made by people who understand what is genuinely horrific about existence.

Movie Review – Somewhere in Time

Somewhere in Time (1980)
Written by Richard Matheson
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

I approached this film with moderate expectations but found myself enjoying it quite a bit. Somewhere in Time is a melodrama dripping with maudlin sentimentality. But it’s a well crafted one, so those excesses and silly bits can easily be ignored or enjoyed. The film is based on the novel Bid Time Return, also written by Richard Matheson. Between this film and my Twilight Zone series, I have enjoyed Matheson’s work this year. I’d only previously read I Am Legend, but I think I may need to do a deeper dive into his work. Somewhere in Time feels like a Matheson episode of Twilight Zone, which is stretched out a little longer and gives us a relatively decent tragic love story.

Movie Review – The Fog

The Fog (1980)
Written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill
Directed by John Carpenter

John Carpenter is a well-known master of horror & the fantastic and in the early 1980s he was doing the best work of his career. By 1980 he’d directed Dark Dark, Assault of Precinct 13, and the film that propelled him to greater heights, Halloween. Two years later, he would make one movie a year for five consecutive years. It began with The Fog. The idea for The Fog came over several years dating back to the early 1970s as Carpenter recalled a British horror film he saw from a child about monsters in the clouds. While visiting Stonehenge while filming in the UK, he noticed the eerieness of a fog that crept over the site. After hearing about a tragic shipwreck off the northern California coast, Carpenter sat down with then-girlfriend Debra Hill and worked out the screenplay.